A young woman seeking to marry in Israel is told by the Chief Rabbinate that in order to prove that she is Jewish, and thus qualified to wed in the state, she must bring proof, via a photograph, of her grandmother’s grave in London.

For many American Jews the well-documented reports of increased anti-Semitism this summer in such countries as England, France, Hungary, Germany and Sweden, sparked by the Gaza war, only confirmed a perception that there is no future for Jewish life in Europe.

The case of Barry Freundel, the influential rabbi of Congregation Kesher Israel in Washington, D.C., who was arrested last week on charges of videotaping women undressing to use the synagogue’s mikvah, has catapulted the issue of rabbinic abuse of power into the headlines. It has generated widespread emotions of anger, distrust and disgust, and raised questions about men’s influence on female use of the mikvah for family purity and in the conversion process. It has also prompted calls for new communal policies to give women a greater voice in Orthodox life.

When it comes to hardware stores, count me as a One-Day-A-Year Jew — and that day is comes around just before the holiday of Sukkot, when over the years I would struggle to put up our family sukkah in the backyard. Thank God it only has to stand for eight days.

Illustrating his assertion that Israel “is a tough sell” because of its policies toward the Palestinians and its negative image internationally, longtime Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, 73, observed the other day, “You couldn’t get Paul Newman to play [an Israeli war hero] in ‘Exodus’ today, people would laugh at it. It’s a pity.”